foes for friends; and then with the rest of his force he engaged theenemy by land, while those in the ship captured the city. Inconformity with this version of the campaign (which I have selected inpreference to another recorded by Plutarch), an Athenian ship once ayear passed silently to Salamis--the inhabitants rushed clamouringdown to meet it--an armed man leaped ashore, and ran shouting to thePromontory of Sciradium, near which was long existent a temple erectedand dedicated to Mars by Solon.

But the brave and resolute Megarians were not men to be disheartenedby a single reverse; they persisted in the contest--losses weresustained on either side, and at length both states agreed to refertheir several claims on the sovereignty of the island to the decisionof Spartan arbiters. And this appeal from arms to arbitration is aproof how much throughout Greece had extended that spirit ofcivilization which is but an extension of the sense of justice. Bothparties sought to ground their claims upon ancient and traditionalrights. Solon is said to have assisted the demand of his countrymenby a quotation, asserted to have been spuriously interpolated fromHomer's catalogue of the ships, which appeared to imply the ancientconnexion of Salamis and Athens (199); and whether or not this wasactually done, the very tradition that it was done, nearly half acentury before the first usurpation of Pisistratus, is a proof of thegreat authority of Homer in that age, and how largely the servicesrendered by Pisistratus, many years afterward, to the Homeric poems,have been exaggerated and misconstrued. The mode of burial inSalamis, agreeable to the custom of the Athenians and contrary to thatof the Megarians, and reference to certain Delphic oracles, in whichthe island was called "Ionian," were also adduced in support of theAthenian claims. The arbitration of the umpires in favour of Athensonly suspended hostilities; and the Megarians did not cease to watch(and shortly afterward they found) a fitting occasion to regain asettlement so tempting to their ambition.

V. The credit acquired by Solon in this expedition was shortlyafterward greatly increased in the estimation of Greece. In the Bayof Corinth was situated a town called Cirrha, inhabited by a fierceand lawless race, who, after devastating the sacred territories ofDelphi, sacrilegiously besieged the city itself, in the desire topossess themselves of the treasures which the piety of Greece hadaccumulated in the temple of Apollo. Solon appeared at theAmphictyonic council, represented the sacrilege of the Cirrhaeans, andpersuaded the Greeks to arm in defence of the altars of their tutelarygod. Clisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, was sent as commander-in-chiefagainst the Cirrhaeans (B. C. 595); and (according to Plutarch) therecords of Delphi inform us that Alcmaeon was the leader of theAthenians. The war was not very successful at the onset; the oracleof Apollo was consulted, and the answer makes one of the most amusinganecdotes of priestcraft. The besiegers were informed by the god thatthe place would not be reduced until the waves of the Cirrhaean Seawashed the territories of Delphi. The reply perplexed the army; butthe superior sagacity of Solon was not slow in discovering that theholy intention of the oracle was to appropriate the land of theCirrhaeans to the profit of the temple. He therefore advised thebesiegers to attack and to conquer Cirrha, and to dedicate its wholeterritory to the service of the god. The advice was adopted--Cirrhawas taken (B. C. 586); it became thenceforth the arsenal of Delphi,and the insulted deity had the satisfaction of seeing the sacred landswashed by the waves of the Cirrhaean Sea. An oracle of this naturewas perhaps more effectual than the sword of Clisthenes in preventingfuture assaults on the divine city! The Pythian games commenced, orwere revived, in celebration of this victory of the Pythian god.

VI. Meanwhile at Athens--the tranquillity of the state was stilldisturbed by the mortal feud between the party of Cylon and theadherents of the Alcmaeonidae--time only served to exasperate thedesire of vengeance in the one, and increase the indisposition tojustice in the other. Fortunately, however, the affairs of the statewere in that crisis which is ever favourable to the authority of anindividual. There are periods in all constitutions when, amid theexcesses of factions, every one submits willingly to an arbiter. Withthe genius that might have made him the destroyer of the liberties ofhis country, Solon had the virtue to constitute himself their saviour.He persuaded the families stigmatized with the crime of sacrilege, andthe epithet of "execrable," to submit to the forms of trial; they wereimpeached, judged, and condemned to exile; the bodies of those whomdeath had already summoned to a sterner tribunal were disinterred, andremoved beyond the borders of Attica. Nevertheless, the superstitionsof the people were unappeased. Strange appearances were beheld in theair, and the augurs declared that the entrails of the victims denotedthat the gods yet demanded a fuller expiation of the national crime.

At this time there lived in Crete one of those remarkable men commonto the early ages of the world, who sought to unite with the honoursof the sage the mysterious reputation of the magician. Epimenides,numbered by some among the seven wise men, was revered throughoutGreece as one whom a heavenlier genius animated and inspired. Devotedto poetry, this crafty impostor carried its prerogatives of fictioninto actual life; and when he declared--in one of his verses, quotedby St. Paul in his Epistle to Titus--that "the Cretans were greatliars," we have no reason to exempt the venerable accuser from his ownunpatriotic reproach. Among the various legends which attach to hismemory is a tradition that has many a likeness both in northern andeastern fable:--he is said to have slept forty-seven [200] years in acave, and on his waking from that moderate repose, to have been notunreasonably surprised to discover the features of the countryperfectly changed. Returning to Cnossus, of which he was a citizen,strange faces everywhere present themselves. At his father's door heis asked his business, and at length, with considerable difficulty.he succeeds in making himself known to his younger brother, whom hehad left a boy, and now recognised in an old decrepit man. "Thisstory," says a philosophical biographer, very gravely, "made aconsiderable sensation"--an assertion not to be doubted; but those whowere of a more skeptical disposition, imagined that Epimenides hadspent the years of his reputed sleep in travelling over foreigncountries, and thus acquiring from men those intellectual acquisitionswhich he more piously referred to the special inspiration of the gods.Epimenides did not scruple to preserve the mysterious reputation heobtained from this tale by fables equally audacious. He endeavouredto persuade the people that he was Aeacus, and that he frequentlyvisited the earth: he was supposed to be fed by the nymphs--was neverseen to eat in public--he assumed the attributes of prophecy--anddying in extreme old age: was honoured by the Cretans as a god.

In addition to his other spiritual prerogatives, this reviler of"liars" boasted the power of exorcism; was the first to introduce intoGreece the custom of purifying public places and private abodes, andwas deemed peculiarly successful in banishing those ominous phantomswhich were so injurious to the tranquillity of the inhabitants ofAthens. Such a man was exactly the person born to relieve the fearsof the Athenians, and accomplish the things dictated by the pantingentrails of the sacred victims. Accordingly (just prior to theCirrhaean war, B. C. 596), a ship was fitted out, in which an Atheniannamed Nicias was sent to Crete, enjoined to bring back the purifyingphilosopher, with all that respectful state which his celebritydemanded. Epimenides complied with the prayer of the Athenians hearrived at Athens, and completed the necessary expiation in a mannersomewhat simple for so notable an exorcist. He ordered several sheep,some black and some white, to be turned loose in the Areopagus,directed them to be followed, and wherever they lay down, a sacrificewas ordained in honour of some one of the gods. "Hence," says thehistorian of the philosophers, "you may still see throughout Athensanonymous altars (i. e. altars uninscribed to a particular god), thememorials of that propitiation."

The order was obeyed--the sacrifice performed--and the phantoms wereseen no more. Although an impostor, Epimenides was a man of sagacityand genius. He restrained the excess of funeral lamentation, whichoften led to unseasonable interruptions of business, and conduced tofallacious impressions of morality; and in return he accustomed theAthenians to those regular habits of prayer and divine worship, whichever tend to regulate and systematize the character of a people. Heformed the closest intimacy with Solon, and many of the subsequentlaws of the Athenian are said by Plutarch to have been suggested bythe wisdom of the Cnossian sage. When the time arrived for thedeparture of Epimenides, the Athenians would have presented him with atalent in reward of his services, but the philosopher refused theoffer; he besought the Athenians to a firm alliance with hiscountrymen; accepted of no other remuneration than a branch of thesacred olive which adorned the citadel, and was supposed the primevalgift of Minerva, and returned to his native city,--proving that a manin those days might be an impostor without seeking any other rewardthan the gratuitous honour of the profession.

VII. With the departure of Epimenides, his spells appear to haveceased; new disputes and new factions arose; and, having no othercrimes to expiate, the Athenians fell with one accord upon those ofthe government. Three parties--the Mountaineers, the Lowlanders, andthe Coastmen--each advocating a different form of constitution,distracted the state by a common discontent with the constitution thatexisted, the three parties, which, if we glance to the experience ofmodern times, we might almost believe that no free state can ever bewithout--viz., the respective advocates of the oligarchic, the mixed,and the democratic government. The habits of life ever produce amongclasses the political principles by which they are severallyregulated. The inhabitants of the mountainous district, free, rude,and hardy, were attached to a democracy; the possessors of the plainswere the powerful families who inclined to an oligarchy, although, asin all aristocracies, many of them united, but with more moderateviews, in the measures of the democratic party; and they who, livingby the coast, were engaged in those commercial pursuits which at onceproduce an inclination to liberty, yet a fear of its excess, ajealousy of the insolence of the nobles, yet an apprehension of thelicentiousness of the mob, arrayed themselves in favour of that mixedform of government--half oligarchic and half popular--which is usuallythe most acceptable to the middle classes of an enterprising people.But there was a still more fearful division than these, the threelegitimate parties, now existing in Athens: a division, not ofprinciple, but of feeling--that menacing division which, like thecracks in the soil, portending earthquake, as it gradually widens, isthe symptom of convulsions that level and destroy,--the division, inone word, of the rich and the poor--the Havenots and the Haves. Underan oligarchy, that most griping and covetous of all forms ofgovernment, the inequality of fortunes had become intolerablygrievous; so greatly were the poor in debt to the rich, that [201]they were obliged to pay the latter a sixth of the produce of theland, or else to engage their personal labour to their creditors, whomight seize their persons in default of payment. Some were thusreduced to slavery, others sold to foreigners. Parents disposed oftheir children to clear their debts, and many, to avoid servitude, instealth deserted the land. But a large body of the distressed, menmore sturdy and united, resolved to resist the iron pressure of thelaw: they formed the design of abolishing debts--dividing the land--remodelling the commonwealth: they looked around for a leader, andfixed their hopes on Solon. In the impatience of the poor, in theterror of the rich, liberty had lost its charms, and it was nouncommon nor partial hope that a monarchy might be founded on theruins of an oligarchy already menaced with dissolution.

VIII. Solon acted during these disturbances with more than his usualsagacity, and therefore, perhaps, with less than his usual energy. Heheld himself backward and aloof, allowing either party to interpret,as it best pleased, ambiguous and oracular phrases, obnoxious to none,for he had the advantage of being rich without the odium of extortion,and popular without the degradation of poverty. "Phanias the Lesbian"(so states the biographer of Solon) "asserts, that to save the statehe intrigued with both parties, promising to the poor a division ofthe lands, to the rich a confirmation of their claims;" an assertionhighly agreeable to the finesse and subtlety of his character.Appearing loath to take upon himself the administration of affairs, itwas pressed upon him the more eagerly; and at length he was elected tothe triple office of archon, arbitrator, and lawgiver; the destiniesof Athens were unhesitatingly placed within his hands; all men hopedfrom him all things; opposing parties concurred in urging him toassume the supreme authority of king; oracles were quoted in hisfavour, and his friends asserted, that to want the ambition of amonarch was to fail in the proper courage of a man. Thus supported,thus encouraged, Solon proceeded to his august and immortal task oflegislation.

IX. Let us here pause to examine, by such light as is bequeathed us,the character of Solon. Agreeably to the theory of his favouritemaxim, which made moderation the essence of wisdom, he seems to havegenerally favoured, in politics, the middle party, and, in his ownactions, to have been singular for that energy which is theequilibrium of indifference and of rashness. Elevated into supremeand unquestioned power--urged on all sides to pass from the office ofthe legislator to the dignity of the prince--his ambition never passedthe line which his virtue dictated to his genius. "Tyranny," saidSolon, "is a fair field, but it has no outlet." A subtle, as well asa noble saying; it implies that he who has once made himself themaster of the state has no option as to the means by which he mustcontinue his power. Possessed of that fearful authority, his firstobject is to rule, and it becomes a secondary object to rule well."Tyranny has, indeed, no outlet!" The few, whom in modern times wehave seen endowed with a similar spirit of self-control, haveattracted our admiration by their honesty rather than their intellect;and the skeptic in human virtue has ascribed the purity of Washingtonas much to the mediocrity of his genius as to the sincerity of hispatriotism:--the coarseness of vulgar ambition can sympathize butlittle with those who refuse a throne. But in Solon there is nodisparity between the mental and the moral, nor can we account for themoderation of his views by affecting doubt of the extent of hispowers. His natural genius was versatile and luxuriant. As anorator, he was the first, according to Cicero, who originated thelogical and brilliant rhetoric which afterward distinguished theAthenians. As a poet, we have the assurance of Plato that, could hehave devoted himself solely to the art, even Homer would not haveexcelled him. And though these panegyrics of later writers are to bereceived with considerable qualification--though we may feel assuredthat Solon could never have been either a Demosthenes or a Homer, yetwe have sufficient evidence in his history to prove him to have beeneloquent--sufficient in the few remains of his verses to attestpoetical talent of no ordinary standard. As a soldier, he seems tohave been a dexterous master of the tactics of that primitive day inwhich military science consisted chiefly in the stratagems of a readywit and a bold invention. As a negotiator, the success with which,out of elements so jarring and distracted, he created an harmonioussystem of society and law, is an unanswerable evidence not more of thesoundness of his theories than of his practical knowledge of mankind.The sayings imputed to him which can be most reasonably consideredauthentic evince much delicacy of observation. Whatever his ideal ofgood government, he knew well that great secret of statesmanship,never to carry speculative doctrines too far beyond the reach of theage to which they are to be applied. Asked if he had given theAthenians the best of laws, his answer was, "The best laws they arecapable of receiving." His legislation, therefore, was no vaguecollection of inapplicable principles. While it has been the originof all subsequent law,--while, adopted by the Romans, it makes at thisday the universal spirit which animates the codes and constitutions ofEurope--it was moulded to the habits, the manners, and the conditionof the people whom it was intended to enlighten, to harmonize, and toguide. He was no gloomy ascetic, such as a false philosophy produces,affecting the barren sublimity of an indolent seclusion; open ofaccess to all, free and frank of demeanour, he found wisdom as much inthe market-place as the cell. He aped no coxcombical contempt ofpleasure, no fanatical disdain of wealth; hospitable, and evensumptuous, in his habits of life, he seemed desirous of proving thattruly to be wise is honestly to enjoy. The fragments of his verseswhich have come down to us are chiefly egotistical: they refer to hisown private sentiments, or public views, and inform us with a noblepride, "that, if reproached with his lack of ambition, he finds akingdom in the consciousness of his unsullied name." With all thesequalities, he apparently united much of that craft and spirit ofartifice which, according to all history, sacred as well as profane,it was not deemed sinful in patriarch or philosopher to indulge.Where he could not win his object by reason, he could stoop to attainit by the affectation of madness. And this quality of craft wasnecessary perhaps, in that age, to accomplish the full utilities ofhis career. However he might feign or dissimulate, the end before himwas invariably excellent and patriotic; and the purity of his privatemorals harmonized with that of his political ambition. What Socrateswas to the philosophy of reflection, Solon was to the philosophy ofaction.

X. The first law that Solon enacted in his new capacity was bold anddecisive. No revolution can ever satisfy a people if it does notlessen their burdens. Poverty disposes men to innovation only becauseinnovation promises relief. Solon therefore applied himselfresolutely, and at once, to the great source of dissension between therich and the poor--namely, the enormous accumulation of debt which hadbeen incurred by the latter, with slavery, the penalty of default. Heinduced the creditors to accept the compromise of their debts: whetherabsolutely cancelling the amount, or merely reducing the interest anddebasing the coin, is a matter of some dispute; the greater number ofauthorities incline to the former supposition, and Plutarch quotes thewords of Solon himself in proof of the bolder hypothesis, althoughthey by no means warrant such an interpretation. And to remove forever the renewal of the greatest grievance in connexion with the pastdistresses, he enacted a law that no man hereafter could sell himselfin slavery for the discharge of a debt. Even such as were alreadyenslaved were emancipated, and those sold by their creditors intoforeign countries were ransomed, and restored to their native land,But, though (from the necessity of the times) Solon went to thisdesperate extent of remedy, comparable in our age only to the formalsanction of a national bankruptcy, he rejected with firmness the wilddesire of a division of lands. There may be abuses in the contractionof debts which require far sterner alternatives than the inequalitiesof property. He contented himself in respect to the latter with a lawwhich set a limit to the purchase of land--a theory of legislation notsufficiently to be praised, if it were possible to enforce it [202].At first, these measures fell short of the popular expectation,excited by the example of Sparta into the hope of an equality offortunes: but the reaction soon came. A public sacrifice was offeredin honour of the discharge of debt, and the authority of the lawgiverwas corroborated and enlarged. Solon was not one of those politicianswho vibrate alternately between the popular and the aristocraticprinciples, imagining that the concession of to-day ought necessarilyto father the denial of to-morrow. He knew mankind too deeply not tobe aware that there is no statesman whom the populace suspect like theone who commences authority with a bold reform, only to continue itwith hesitating expedients. His very next measure was more vigorousand more unexceptionable than the first. The evil of the laws ofDraco was not that they were severe, but that they were inefficient.In legislation, characters of blood are always traced upon tablets ofsand. With one stroke Solon annihilated the whole of these laws, withthe exception of that (an ancient and acknowledged ordinance) whichrelated to homicide; he affixed, in exchange, to various crimes--totheft, to rape, to slander, to adultery--punishments proportioned tothe offence. It is remarkable that in the spirit of his laws heappealed greatly to the sense of honour and the fear of shame, andmade it one of his severest penalties to be styled atimos orunhonoured--a theory that, while it suited the existent, went far toennoble the future, character of the Athenians. In the same spiritthe children of those who perished in war were educated at the publiccharge--arriving at maturity, they were presented with a suit ofarmour, settled in their respective callings, and honoured withprincipal seats in all public assemblies. That is a wise principle ofa state which makes us grateful to its pensioners, and bids us regardin those supported at the public charge the reverent memorials of thepublic service [203]. Solon had the magnanimity to preclude, by hisown hand, a dangerous temptation to his own ambition, and assigneddeath to the man who aspired to the sole dominion of the commonwealth.He put a check to the jobbing interests and importunate canvass ofindividuals, by allowing no one to propose a law in favour of a singleperson, unless he had obtained the votes of six thousand citizens; andhe secured the quiet of a city exposed to the license of powerfulfactions, by forbidding men to appear armed in the streets, unless incases of imminent exigence.

XI. The most memorable of Solon's sayings illustrates the theory ofthe social fabric he erected. When asked how injustice should bebanished from a commonwealth, he answered, "by making all meninterested in the injustice done to each;" an answer imbodying thewhole soul of liberty. His innovations in the mere forms of theancient constitution do not appear to have been considerable; herather added than destroyed. Thus he maintained or revived the senateof the aristocracy; but to check its authority he created a people.The four ancient tribes [204], long subdivided into minor sections,were retained. Foreigners, who had transported for a permanence theirproperty and families to Athens, and abandoned all connexion withtheir own countries, were admitted to swell the numbers of the freepopulation. This made the constituent body. At the age of eighteen,each citizen was liable to military duties within the limits ofAttica; at the age of twenty he attained his majority, and becameentitled to a vote in the popular assembly, and to all the otherrights of citizenship. Every free Athenian of the age of twenty wasthus admitted to a vote in the legislature. But the possession of avery considerable estate was necessary to the attainment of the higheroffices. Thus, while the people exercised universal suffrage invoting, the choice of candidates was still confined to an oligarchy.Four distinct ranks were acknowledged; not according, as hitherto, tohereditary descent, but the possession of property. They whose incomeyielded five hundred measures in any commodity, dry or liquid, wereplaced in the first rank, under the title of Pentacosiomedimnians.The second class, termed Hippeis, knights or horsemen, was composed ofthose whose estates yielded three hundred measures. Each manbelonging to it was obliged to keep a horse for the public service,and to enlist himself, if called upon, in the cavalry of the militaryforces (the members of either of these higher classes were exempt,however, from serving on board ship, or in the infantry, unlessintrusted with some command.) The third class was composed of thosepossessing two hundred [205] measures, and called Zeugitae; and thefourth and most numerous class comprehended, under the name of Thetes,the bulk of the non-enslaved working population, whose property fellshort of the qualification required for the Zeugitae. Glancing overthese divisions, we are struck by their similarity to the ranks amongour own northern and feudal ancestry, corresponding to the nobles, theknights, the burgesses, and the labouring classes, which have so longmade, and still constitute, the demarcations of society in modernEurope. The members of the first class were alone eligible to thehighest offices as archons, those of the three first classes to thepolitical assembly of the four hundred (which I shall presentlydescribe), and to some minor magistracies; the members of the fourthclass were excluded from all office, unless, as they voted in thepopular assembly, they may be said to have had a share in thelegislature, and to exercise, in extraordinary causes, judicialauthority. At the same time no hereditary barrier excluded them fromthe hopes so dear to human aspirations. They had only to acquire thenecessary fortune in order to enjoy the privileges of their superiors.And, accordingly, we find, by an inscription on the Acropolis,recorded in Pollux, that Anthemion, of the lowest class, was suddenlyraised to the rank of knight. [206]

XII. We perceive, from these divisions of rank, that the mainprinciple of Solon's constitution was founded, not upon birth, butwealth. He instituted what was called a timocracy, viz., anaristocracy of property; based upon democratic institutions of popularjurisdiction, election, and appeal. Conformably to the principlewhich pervades all states, that make property the qualification foroffice, to property the general taxation was apportioned. And this,upon a graduated scale, severe to the first class, and completelyexonerating the lowest. The ranks of the citizens thus established,the constitution acknowledged three great councils or branches oflegislature. The first was that of the venerable Areopagus. We havealready seen that this institution had long existed among theAthenians; but of late it had fallen into some obscurity or neglect,and was not even referred to in the laws of Draco. Solon continuedthe name of the assembly, but remodelled its constitution. Ancientlyit had probably embraced all the Eupatrids. Solon defined the claimsof the aspirants to that official dignity, and ordained that no oneshould be admitted to the areopagus who had not filled the situationof archon--an ordeal which implied not only the necessity of thehighest rank, but, as I shall presently note, of sober character andunblemished integrity.

The remotest traditions clothed the very name of this assembly withmajesty and awe. Holding their council on the sacred hill consecratedto Mars, fable asserted that the god of battle had himself beenarraigned before its tribunal. Solon exerted his imagination tosustain the grandeur of its associations. Every distinction waslavished upon senators, who, in the spirit of his laws, could onlypass from the temple of virtue to that of honour. Before theirjurisdiction all species of crime might be arraigned--they had equalpower to reward and to punish. From the guilt of murder to thenegative offence of idleness [207], their control extended--theconsecration of altars to new deities, the penalties affixed toimpiety, were at their decision, and in their charge. Theirs was theillimitable authority to scrutinize the lives of men--they attendedpublic meetings and solemn sacrifices, to preserve order by themajesty of their presence. The custody of the laws and the managementof the public funds, the superintendence of the education of youth,were committed to their care. Despite their power, they interferedbut little in the management of political affairs, save in cases ofimminent danger. Their duties, grave, tranquil, and solemn, held themaloof from the stir of temporary agitation. They were the last greatrefuge of the state, to which, on common occasions, it was almostprofanity to appeal. Their very demeanour was modelled to harmonizewith the reputation of their virtues and the dignity of their office.It was forbidden to laugh in their assembly--no archon who had beenseen in a public tavern could be admitted to their order [208], andfor an areopagite to compose a comedy was a matter of specialprohibition [209]. They sat in the open air, in common with allcourts having cognizance of murder. If the business before them wasgreat and various, they were wont to divide themselves intocommittees, to each of which the several causes were assigned by lot,so that no man knowing the cause he was to adjudge could be assailedwith the imputation of dishonest or partial prepossession. After dulyhearing both parties, they gave their judgment with proverbial gravityand silence. The institution of the ballot (a subsequent custom)afforded secrecy to their award--a proceeding necessary amid thejealousy and power of factions, to preserve their judgment unbiased bypersonal fear, and the abolition of which, we shall see hereafter, wasamong the causes that crushed for a while the liberties of Athens. Abrazen urn received the suffrages of condemnation--one of wood thoseof acquittal. Such was the character and constitution of theAREOPAGUS. [210]

XIII. The second legislative council ordained or revived by Solon,consisted of a senate, composed, first of four hundred, and many yearsafterward of five hundred members. To this council all, save thelowest and most numerous class, were eligible, provided they hadpassed or attained the age of thirty. It was rather a chance assemblythan a representative one. The manner of its election appears notmore elaborate than clumsy. To every ward there was a president,called phylarchus. This magistrate, on a certain day in the year,gave in the names of all the persons within his district entitled tothe honour of serving in the council, and desirous of enjoying it.These names were inscribed on brazen tablets, and cast into a certainvessel. In another vessel was placed an equal number of beans;supposing the number of candidates to be returned by each tribe to be(as it at first was) a hundred, there were one hundred white beans putinto the vessel--the rest were black. Then the names of thecandidates and the beans were drawn out one by one; and each candidatewho had the good fortune to have his name drawn out together with awhite bean, became a member of the senate. Thus the constitution ofeach succeeding senate might differ from the last--might, so far fromrepresenting the people, contradict their wishes--was utterly a matterof hazard and chance; and when Mr. Mitford informs us that theassembly of the people was the great foundation of evil in theAthenian constitution, it appears that to the capricious andunsatisfactory election of this council we may safely impute many ofthe inconsistencies and changes which that historian attributesentirely to the more popular assembly [211]. To this council wereintrusted powers less extensive in theory than those of the Areopagus,but far more actively exerted. Its members inspected the fleet (whena fleet was afterward established)--they appointed jailers of prisons--they examined the accounts of magistrates at the termination oftheir office; these were minor duties; to them was allotted also anauthority in other departments of a much higher and more complicatednature. To them was given the dark and fearful extent of power whichenabled them to examine and to punish persons accused of offencesunspecified by any peculiar law [212]--an ordinance than which, hadless attention been paid to popular control, the wildest ambition ofdespotism would have required no broader base for its designs. Apower to punish crimes unspecified by law is a power above law, andignorance or corruption may easily distort innocence itself intocrime. But the main duty of the Four Hundred was to prepare the lawsto be submitted to the assembly of the people--the great populartribunal which we are about presently to consider. Nor could any law,according to Solon, be introduced into that assembly until it hadundergone the deliberation, and received the sanction, of thispreliminary council. With them, therefore, was THE ORIGIN OF ALLLEGISLATION. In proportion to these discretionary powers was theexamination the members of the council underwent. Previous to theadmission of any candidate, his life, his character, and his actionswere submitted to a vigorous scrutiny [213]. The senators then took asolemn oath that they would endeavour to promote the public good, andthe highest punishment they were allowed to inflict was a penalty offive hundred drachma. If that punishment were deemed by theminsufficient, the criminal was referred to the regular courts of law.At the expiration of their trust, which expired with each year, thesenators gave an account of their conduct, and the senate itselfpunished any offence of its members; so severe were its inflictions,that a man expelled from the senate was eligible as a judge--a proofthat expulsion was a punishment awarded to no heinous offence. [214]

The members of each tribe presided in turn over the rest [215] underthe name of prytanes. It was the duty of the prytanes to assemble thesenate, which was usually every day, and to keep order in the greatassembly of the people. These were again subdivided into the proedri,who presided weekly over the rest, while one of this number, appointedby lot, was the chief president (or Epistates) of the whole council;to him were intrusted the keys of the citadel and the treasury, and awholesome jealousy of this twofold trust limited its exercise to asingle day. Each member gave notice in writing of any motion heintended to make--the prytanes had the prior right to propound thequestion, and afterward it became matter of open discussion--theydecided by ballot whether to reject or adopt it; if accepted, it wasthen submitted to the assembly of the people, who ratified or refusedthe law which they might not originate.

Such was the constitution of the Athenian council, one resembling inmany points to the common features of all modern legislativeassemblies.

XIV. At the great assembly of the people, to which we now arrive, allfreemen of the age of discretion, save only those branded by law withthe opprobrium of atimos (unhonoured) [216], were admissible. At thetime of Solon, this assembly was by no means of the importance towhich it afterward arose. Its meetings were comparatively rare, andno doubt it seldom rejected the propositions of the Four Hundred. Butwhenever different legislative assemblies exist, and popular controlis once constitutionally acknowledged, it is in the nature of thingsthat the more democratic assembly should absorb the main business ofthe more aristocratic. A people are often enslaved by the accident ofa despot, but almost ever gain upon the checks which the constitutionis intended habitually to oppose. In the later time, the assembly metfour times in five weeks (at least, during the period in which thetribes were ten in number), that is, during the presidence of eachprytanea. The first time of their meeting they heard matters ofgeneral import, approved or rejected magistrates, listened toaccusations of grave political offences [217], as well as theparticulars of any confiscation of goods. The second time wasappropriated to affairs relative as well to individuals as thecommunity; and it was lawful for every man either to present apetition or share in a debate. The third time of meeting was devotedto the state audience of ambassadors. The fourth, to matters ofreligious worship or priestly ceremonial. These four periodicalmeetings, under the name of Curia, made the common assembly, requiringno special summons, and betokening no extraordinary emergency. Butbesides these regular meetings, upon occasions of unusual danger, orin cases requiring immediate discussion, the assembly of the peoplemight also be convened by formal proclamation; and in this case it wastermed "Sugkletos," which we may render by the word convocation. Theprytanes, previous to the meeting of the assembly, always placarded insome public place a programme of the matters on which the people wereto consult. The persons presiding over the meeting were proedri,chosen by lot from the nine tribes, excluded at the time being fromthe office of prytanes; out of their number a chief president (orepistates) was elected also by lot. Every effort was made to compel anumerous attendance, and each man attending received a small coin forhis trouble [218], a practice fruitful in jests to the comedians. Theprytanes might forbid a man of notoriously bad character to speak.The chief president gave the signal for their decision. In ordinarycases they held up their hands, voting openly; but at a later period,in cases where intimidation was possible, such as in the offences ofmen of power and authority, they voted in secret. They met usually inthe vast arena of their market-place. [219]

XV. Recapitulating the heads of that complex constitution I have thusdetailed, the reader will perceive that the legislative power restedin three assemblies--the Areopagus, the Council, and the Assembly ofthe People--that the first, notwithstanding its solemn dignity andvast authority, seldom interfered in the active, popular, and dailypolitics of the state--that the second originated laws, which thethird was the great Court of Appeal to sanction or reject. The greatimprovement of modern times has been to consolidate the two lattercourts in one, and to unite in a representative senate the sagacity ofa deliberative council with the interests of a popular assembly;--themore closely we blend these objects, the more perfectly, perhaps, weattain, by the means of wisdom, the ends of liberty.

XVI. But although in a senate composed by the determinations ofchance, and an assembly which from its numbers must ever have beenexposed to the agitation of eloquence and the caprices of passion,there was inevitably a crude and imperfect principle,--although twocourts containing in themselves the soul and element of contradictionnecessarily wanted that concentrated oneness of purpose propitious tothe regular and majestic calmness of legislation, we cannot but allowthe main theory of the system to have been precisely that mostfavourable to the prodigal exuberance of energy, of intellect, and ofgenius. Summoned to consultation upon all matters, from the greatestto the least, the most venerable to the most trite--to-day deciding onthe number of their war-ships, to-morrow on that of a tragic chorus;now examining with jealous forethought the new harriers tooligarchical ambition;--now appointing, with nice distinction, tovarious service the various combinations of music [220];--nowwelcoming in their forum-senate the sober ambassadors of Lacedaemon orthe jewelled heralds of Persia, now voting their sanction to newtemples or the reverent reforms of worship; compelled to a lively andunceasing interest in all that arouses the mind, or elevates thepassions, or refines the taste;--supreme arbiters of the art of thesculptor, as the science of the lawgiver,--judges and rewarders of thelimner and the poet, as of the successful negotiator or the prosperoussoldier; we see at once the all-accomplished, all-versatile genius ofthe nation, and we behold in the same glance the effect and thecause:--every thing being referred to the people, the people learnedof every thing to judge. Their genius was artificially forced, and ineach of its capacities. They had no need of formal education. Theirwhole life was one school. The very faults of their assembly, in itsproneness to be seduced by extraordinary eloquence, aroused theemulation of the orator, and kept constantly awake the imagination ofthe audience. An Athenian was, by the necessity of birth, what Miltondreamed that man could only become by the labours of completesteducation: in peace a legislator, in war a soldier,--in all times, onall occasions, acute to judge and resolute to act. All that caninspire the thought or delight the leisure were for the people.Theirs were the portico and the school--theirs the theatre, thegardens, and the baths; they were not, as in Sparta, the tools of thestate--they were the state! Lycurgus made machines and Solon men. InSparta the machine was to be wound up by the tyranny of a fixedprinciple; it could not dine as it pleased--it could not walk as itpleased--it was not permitted to seek its she machine save by stealthand in the dark; its children were not its own--even itself had noproperty in self. Sparta incorporated, under the name of freedom, theworst complexities, the most grievous and the most frivolousvexations, of slavery. And therefore was it that Lacedaemonflourished and decayed, bequeathing to fame men only noted for hardyvalour, fanatical patriotism, and profound but dishonourable craft--attracting, indeed, the wonder of the world, but advancing no claim toits gratitude, and contributing no single addition to its intellectualstores. But in Athens the true blessing of freedom was rightlyplaced--in the opinions and the soul. Thought was the common heritagewhich every man might cultivate at his will. This unshackled libertyhad its convulsions and its excesses, but producing unceasingemulation and unbounded competition, an incentive to every effort, atribunal to every claim, it broke into philosophy with the one--intopoetry with the other--into the energy and splendour of unexampledintelligence with all. Looking round us at this hour, more than four-and-twenty centuries after the establishment of the constitution wehave just surveyed,--in the labours of the student--in the dreams ofthe poet--in the aspirations of the artist--in the philosophy of thelegislator--we yet behold the imperishable blessings we derive fromthe liberties of Athens and the institutions of Solon. The life ofAthens became extinct, but her soul transfused itself, immortal andimmortalizing, through the world.

XVII. The penal code of Solon was founded on principles whollyopposite to those of Draco. The scale of punishment was moderate,though sufficiently severe. One distinction will suffice to give usan adequate notion of its gradations. Theft by day was not a capitaloffence, but if perpetrated by night the felon might lawfully be slainby the owner. The tendency to lean to the side of mercy in all casesmay be perceived from this--that if the suffrages of the judges wereevenly divided, it was the custom in all the courts of Athens toacquit the accused. The punishment of death was rare; that of atimiasupplied its place. Of the different degrees of atimia it is not mypurpose to speak at present. By one degree, however, the offender wasmerely suspended from some privilege of freedom enjoyed by thecitizens generally, or condemned to a pecuniary fine; the seconddegree allowed the confiscation of goods; the third for ever deprivedthe criminal and his posterity of the rights of a citizen: this lastwas the award only of aggravated offences. Perpetual exile was asentence never passed but upon state criminals. The infliction offines, which became productive of great abuse in later times, wasmoderately apportioned to offences in the time of Solon, partly fromthe high price of money, but partly, also, from the wise moderation ofthe lawgiver. The last grave penalty of death was of various kinds,as the cross, the gibbet, the precipice, the bowl--afflictions seldomin reserve for the freemen.

As the principle of shame was a main instrument of the penal code ofthe Athenians, so they endeavoured to attain the same object by thesublimer motive of honour. Upon the even balance of rewards thatstimulate, and penalties that deter, Solon and his earlier successorsconceived the virtue of the commonwealth to rest. A crown presentedby the senate or the people--a public banquet in the hall of state--the erection of a statue in the thoroughfares (long a most raredistinction)--the privilege of precedence in the theatre or assembly--were honours constantly before the eyes of the young and the hopes ofthe ambitious. The sentiment of honour thus became a guidingprinciple of the legislation, and a large component of the characterof the Athenians.

XVIII. Judicial proceedings, whether as instituted by Solon or ascorrupted by his successors, were exposed to some grave and vitalevils hereafter to be noticed. At present I content myself withobserving, that Solon carried into the judicial the principles, of hislegislative courts. It was his theory, that all the citizens shouldbe trained to take an interest in state. Every year a body of sixthousand citizens was chosen by lot; no qualification save that ofbeing thirty years of age was demanded in this election. The bodythus chosen, called Heliaea, was subdivided into smaller courts,before which all offences, but especially political ones, might betried. Ordinary cases were probably left by Solon to the ordinarymagistrates; but it was not long before the popular jurors drew tothemselves the final trial and judgment of all causes. This judicialpower was even greater than the legislative; for if an act had passedthrough all the legislative forms, and was, within a year of the date,found inconsistent with the constitution or public interests, thepopular courts could repeal the act and punish its author. In Athensthere were no professional lawyers; the law being supposed the commoninterest of citizens, every encouragement was given to the prosecutor--every facility to the obtaining of justice.

Solon appears to have recognised the sound principle, that thestrength of law is in the public disposition to cherish and revereit,--and that nothing is more calculated to make permanent the generalspirit of a constitution than to render its details flexile and opento reform. Accordingly, he subjected his laws to the vigilance ofregular and constant revision. Once a year, proposals for alteringany existent law might be made by any citizen--were debated--and, ifapproved, referred to a legislative committee, drawn by lot from thejurors. The committee then sat in judgment on the law; five advocateswere appointed to plead for the old law; if unsuccessful, the new lawcame at once into operation. In addition to this precaution, six ofthe nine archons (called Thesmothetae), whose office rendered themexperienced in the defects of the law, were authorized to review thewhole code, and to refer to the legislative committee theconsideration of any errors or inconsistencies that might requireamendment. [221]

XIX. With respect to the education of youth, the wise Athenian didnot proceed upon the principles which in Sparta attempted to transferto the state the dearest privileges of a parent. From the age ofsixteen to eighteen (and earlier in the case of orphans) the law,indeed, seems to have considered that the state had a right to prepareits citizens for its service; and the youth was obliged to attendpublic gymnastic schools, in which, to much physical, someintellectual, discipline was added, under masters publicly nominated.But from the very circumstance of compulsory education at that age,and the absence of it in childhood, we may suppose that there hadalready grown up in Athens a moral obligation and a general custom, toprepare the youth of the state for the national schools.

Besides the free citizens, there were two subordinate classes--thealiens and the slaves. By the first are meant those composed ofsettlers, who had not relinquished connexion with their nativecountries. These, as universally in Greece, were widely distinguishedfrom the citizens; they paid a small annual sum for the protection ofthe state, and each became a kind of client to some individualcitizen, who appeared for him in the courts of justice. They werealso forbidden to purchase land; but for the rest, Solon, himself amerchant, appears to have given to such aliens encouragements in tradeand manufacture not usual in that age; and most of their disabilitieswere probably rather moral or imaginary than real and daily causes ofgrievance. The great and paramount distinction was between thefreeman and the slave. No slave could be admitted as a witness,except by torture; as for him there was no voice in the state, so forhim there was no tenderness in the law. But though the slave mightnot avenge himself on the master, the system of slavery avenged itselfon the state. The advantages to the intellect of the free citizensresulting from the existence of a class maintained to relieve themfrom the drudgeries of life, were dearly purchased by the constantinsecurity of their political repose. The capital of the rich couldnever be directed to the most productive of all channels--the labourof free competition. The noble did not employ citizens--he purchasedslaves. Thus the commonwealth derived the least possible advantagefrom his wealth; it did not flow through the heart of the republic,employing the idle and feeding the poor. As a necessary consequence,the inequalities of fortune were sternly visible and deeply felt. Therich man had no connexion with the poor man--the poor man hated himfor a wealth of which he did not (as in states where slavery does notexist) share the blessings--purchasing by labour the advantages offortune. Hence the distinction of classes defied the harmonizingeffects of popular legislation. The rich were exposed to unjust andconstant exactions; and society was ever liable to be disorganized byattacks upon property. There was an eternal struggle between thejealousies of the populace and the fears of the wealthy; and many ofthe disorders which modern historians inconsiderately ascribe to theinstitutions of freedom were in reality the growth of the existence ofslavery.

CHAPTER II.

The Departure of Solon from Athens.--The Rise of Pisistratus.--Returnof Solon.--His Conduct and Death.--The Second and Third Tyranny ofPisistratus.--Capture of Sigeum.--Colony in the Chersonesus founded bythe first Miltiades.--Death of Pisistratus.

I. Although the great constitutional reforms of Solon were no doubtcarried into effect during his archonship, yet several of hislegislative and judicial enactments were probably the work of years.When we consider the many interests to conciliate, the many prejudicesto overcome, which in all popular states cripple and delay theprogress of change in its several details, we find little difficultyin supposing, with one of the most luminous of modern scholars [222],that Solon had ample occupation for twenty years after the date of hisarchonship. During this period little occurred in the foreign affairsof Athens save the prosperous termination of the Cirrhaean war, asbefore recorded. At home the new constitution gradually took root,although often menaced and sometimes shaken by the storms of party andthe general desire for further innovation.

The eternal consequence of popular change is, that while it irritatesthe party that loses power, it cannot content the party that gains.It is obvious that each concession to the people but renders thembetter able to demand concessions more important. The theories ofsome--the demands of others--harassed the lawgiver, and threatened thesafety of the laws. Solon, at length, was induced to believe that hisordinances required the sanction and repose of time, and that absence--that moral death--would not only free himself from importunity, buthis infant institutions from the frivolous disposition of change. Inhis earlier years he had repaired, by commercial pursuits, estatesthat had been empoverished by the munificence of his father; and,still cultivating the same resources, he made pretence of his vocationto solicit permission for ail absence of ten years. He is said tohave obtained a solemn promise from the people to alter none of hisinstitutions during that period [223]; and thus he departed from thecity (probably B. C. 575), of whose future glories he had laid thesolid foundation. Attracted by his philosophical habits to thatsolemn land, beneath whose mysteries the credulous Greeks revered thesecrets of existent wisdom, the still adventurous Athenian repaired tothe cities of the Nile, and fed the passion of speculative inquiryfrom the learning of the Egyptian priests. Departing thence toCyprus, he assisted, as his own verses assure us, in the planning of anew city, founded by one of the kings of that beautiful island, andafterward invited to the court of Croesus (associated with his fatherAlyattes, then living), he imparted to the Lydian, amid the splendoursof state and the adulation of slaves, that well-known lesson on theuncertainty of human grandeur, which, according to Herodotus, Croesusso seasonably remembered at the funeral pile. [224]

II. However prudent had appeared to Solon his absence from Athens, itis to be lamented that he did not rather brave the hazards from whichhis genius might have saved the state, than incur those which the veryremoval of a master-spirit was certain to occasion. We may bind mennot to change laws, but we cannot bind the spirit and the opinion,from which laws alone derive cogency or value. We may guard againstthe innovations of a multitude, which a wise statesman sees afar off,and may direct to great ends; but we cannot guard against thatdangerous accident--not to be foreseen, not to be directed--theambition of a man of genius! During the absence of Solon there roseinto eminence one of those remarkable persons who give to viciousdesigns all the attraction of individual virtues. Bold, generous,affable, eloquent, endowed with every gift of nature and fortune--kinsman to Solon, but of greater wealth and more dazzling qualities--the young Pisistratus, son of Hippocrates, early connected himselfwith the democratic or highland party. The Megarians, who had neverrelinquished their designs on Salamis, had taken an opportunity,apparently before the travels, and, according to Plutarch, even beforethe legislation of Solon, to repossess themselves of the island. Whenthe Athenians were enabled to extend their energies beyond their owngreat domestic revolution, Pisistratus obtained the command of anexpedition against these dangerous neighbours, which was attended withthe most signal success. A stratagem referred to Solon by Plutarch,who has with so contagious an inaccuracy blended into one the twoseveral and distinct expeditions of Pisistratus and Solon, oughtrather to be placed to the doubtful glory of the son of Hippocrates[225]. A number of young men sailed with Pisistratus to Colias, andtaking the dress of women, whom they there seized while sacrificing toCeres, a spy was despatched to Salamis, to inform the Megarian guardthat many of the principal Athenian matrons were at Colias, and mightbe easily captured. The Megarians were decoyed, despatched a body ofmen to the opposite shore, and beholding a group in women's attiredancing by the strand, landed confusedly to seize the prize. Thepretended females drew forth their concealed weapons, and theMegarians, surprised and dismayed, were cut off to a man. The victorslost no time in setting sail for Salamis, and easily regained theisle. Pisistratus carried the war into Megara itself, and capturedthe port of Nisaea. These exploits were the foundation of his aftergreatness; and yet young, at the return of Solon, he was already atthe head of the democratic party. But neither his rank, his genius,nor his popular influence sufficed to give to his faction a decidedeminence over those of his rivals. The wealthy nobles of the lowlandswere led by Lycurgus--the moderate party of the coastmen by Megacles,the head of the Alcmaeonidae. And it was in the midst, of the strifeand agitation produced by these great sections of the people thatSolon returned to Athens.

III. The venerable legislator was received with all the gratefulrespect he deserved; but age had dimmed the brilliancy of his powers.His voice could no longer penetrate the mighty crowds of the market-place. New idols had sprung up--new passions were loosed--newinterests formed, and amid the roar and stir of the eternal movement,it was in vain for the high-hearted old man to recall those rushing onthe future to the boundaries of the past. If unsuccessful in public,he was not discouraged from applying in private to the leaders of theseveral parties. Of all those rival nobles, none deferred to hisadvice with so marked a respect as the smooth and plausiblePisistratus. Perhaps, indeed, that remarkable man contemplated thesame objects as Solon himself,--although the one desired to effect bythe authority of the chief, the order and the energy which the otherwould have trusted to the development of the people. But, masking hismore interested designs, Pisistratus outbid all competition in hisseeming zeal for the public welfare. The softness of his manners--hisprofuse liberality--his generosity even to his foes--the splendidqualities which induced Cicero to compare him to Julius Cesar [226],charmed the imagination of the multitude, and concealed theselfishness of his views. He was not a hypocrite, indeed, as to hisvirtues--a dissembler only in his ambition. Even Solon, inendeavouring to inspire him with a true patriotism, acknowledged histalents and his excellences. "But for ambition," said he, "Athenspossesses no citizen worthier than Pisistratus." The time became ripefor the aspiring projects of the chief of the democracy.

IV. The customary crowd was swarming in the market-place, whensuddenly in the midst of the assembly appeared the chariot ofPisistratus. The mules were bleeding--Pisistratus himself waswounded. In this condition the demagogue harangued the people. Hedeclared that he had just escaped from the enemies of himself and thepopular party, who (under the auspices of the Alcmaeonidae) hadattacked him in a country excursion. He reminded the crowd of hisservices in war--his valour against the Megarians--his conquest ofNisaea. He implored their protection. Indignant and inflamed, thefavouring audience shouted their sympathy with his wrongs. "Son ofHippocrates," said Solon, advancing to the spot, and with bitter wit,"you are but a bad imitator of Ulysses. He wounded himself to deludehis enemies--you to deceive your countrymen." [227] The sagacity ofthe reproach was unheeded by the crowd. A special assembly of thepeople was convened, and a partisan of the demagogue moved that abody-guard of fifty men, armed but with clubs, should be assigned tohis protection. Despite the infirmities of his age, and the decreaseof his popular authority, Solon had the energy to oppose the motion,and predict its results. The credulous love of the people swept awayall precaution--the guard was granted. Its number did not longcontinue stationary; Pisistratus artfully increased the amount, tillit swelled to the force required by his designs. He then seized thecitadel--the antagonist faction of Megacles fled--and Pisistratus wasmaster of Athens. Amid the confusion and tumult of the city, Solonretained his native courage. He appeared in public--harangued thecitizens--upbraided their blindness--invoked their courage. In hisspeeches he bade them remember that if it be the more easy task toprevent tyranny, it is the more glorious achievement to destroy it.In his verses [228] he poured forth the indignant sentiment which athousand later bards have borrowed and enlarged; "Blame not Heaven foryour tyrants, blame yourselves." The fears of some, the indifferenceof others, rendered his exhortations fruitless! The brave old mansorrowfully retreated to his house, hung up his weapons without hisdoor, and consoled himself with the melancholy boast that "he had doneall to save his country, and its laws." This was his last publiceffort against the usurper. He disdained flight; and, asked by hisfriends to what he trusted for safety from the wrath of the victor,replied, "To old age,"--a sad reflection, that so great a man shouldfind in infirmity that shelter which he claimed from glory.

V. The remaining days and the latter conduct of Solon are involved inobscurity. According to Plutarch, he continued at Athens, Pisistratusshowing him the utmost respect, and listening to the counsel whichSolon condescended to bestow upon him: according to Diogenes Laertius,he departed again from his native city [229], indignant at itssubmission, and hopeless of its freedom, refusing all overtures fromPisistratus, and alleging that, having established a free government,he would not appear to sanction the success of a tyrant. Eitheraccount is sufficiently probable. The wisdom of Solon might consentto mitigate what he could not cure, or his patriotism might urge himto avoid witnessing the changes he had no power to prevent. Thedispute is of little importance. At his advanced age he could nothave long survived the usurpation of Pisistratus, nor can we find anyauthority for the date of his death so entitled to credit as that ofPhanias, who assigns it to the year following the usurpation ofPisistratus. The bright race was already run. According to the graveauthority of Aristotle, the ashes of Solon were scattered over theIsle of Salamis, which had been the scene of his earlier triumphs; andAthens, retaining his immortal, boasted not his perishable remains.

VI. Pisistratus directed with admirable moderation the courses of therevolution he had produced. Many causes of success were combined inhis favour. His enemies had been the supposed enemies of the people,and the multitude doubtless beheld the flight of the Alcmaeonidae(still odious in their eyes by the massacre of Cylon) as the defeat ofa foe, while the triumph of the popular chief was recognised as thevictory of the people. In all revolutions the man who has sided withthe people is permitted by the people the greatest extent of license.It is easy to perceive, by the general desire which the Athenians hadexpressed for the elevation of Solon to the supreme authority that thenotion of regal authority was not yet hateful to them, and that theywere scarcely prepared for the liberties with which they wereintrusted. But although they submitted thus patiently to theascendency of Pisistratus, it is evident that a less benevolent orless artful tyrant would not have been equally successful. Raisedabove the law, that subtle genius governed only by the law; nay, heaffected to consider its authority greater than his own. He assumedno title--no attribute of sovereignty. He was accused of murder, andhe humbly appeared before the tribunal of the Areopagus--a proof notmore of the moderation of the usurper than of the influence of publicopinion. He enforced the laws of Solon, and compelled the unrulytempers of his faction to subscribe to their wholesome rigour. Theone revolution did not, therefore, supplant, it confirmed, the other."By these means," says Herodotus, "Pisistratus mastered Athens, andyet his situation was far from secure." [230]

VII. Although the heads of the more moderate party, under Megacles,had been expelled from Athens, yet the faction, equally powerful andequally hostile, headed by Lycurgus, and embraced by the bulk of thenobles, still remained. For a time, extending perhaps to five or sixyears, Pisistratus retained his power; but at length, Lycurgus,uniting with the exiled Alcmaeonidae, succeeded in expelling him fromthe city. But the union that had led to his expulsion ceased withthat event. The contests between the lowlanders and the coastmen wereonly more inflamed by the defeat of the third party, which hadoperated as a balance of power, and the broils of their severalleaders were fed by personal ambition as by hereditary animosities.Megacles, therefore, unable to maintain equal ground with Lycurgus,turned his thoughts towards the enemy he had subdued, and sentproposals to Pisistratus, offering to unite their forces, and tosupport him in his pretensions to the tyranny, upon condition that theexiled chief should marry his daughter Coesyra. Pisistratus readilyacceded to the terms, and it was resolved by a theatrical pageant toreconcile his return to the people. In one of the boroughs of thecity there was a woman named Phya, of singular beauty and loftystature. Clad in complete armour, and drawn in a chariot, this womanwas conducted with splendour and triumph towards the city. By herside rode Pisistratus--heralds preceded their march, and proclaimedher approach, crying aloud to the Athenians "to admit Pisistratus, thefavourite of Minerva, for that the goddess herself had come to earthon his behalf."

The sagacity of the Athenians was already so acute, and the artificeappeared to Herodotus so gross, that the simple Halicarnassean couldscarcely credit the authenticity of this tale. But it is possiblethat the people viewed the procession as an ingenious allegory, to theadaptation of which they were already disposed; and that, like thepopulace of a later and yet more civilized people, they hailed thegoddess while they recognised the prostitute [231]. Be that as itmay, the son of Hippocrates recovered his authority, and fulfilled histreaty with Megacles by a marriage with his daughter. Between thecommencement of his first tyranny and the date of his second return,there was probably an interval of twelve years. His sons were alreadyadults. Partly from a desire not to increase his family, partly fromsome superstitious disinclination to the blood of the Alcmaeonidae,which the massacre of Cylon still stigmatized with contamination,Pisistratus conducted himself towards the fair Coesyra with a chastityeither unwelcome to her affection, or afflicting to her pride. Theunwedded wife communicated the mortifying secret to her mother, fromwhose lips it soon travelled to the father. He did not view thepurity of Pisistratus with charitable eyes. He thought it an affrontto his own person that that of his daughter should be so tranquillyregarded. He entered into a league with his former opponents againstthe usurper, and so great was the danger, that Pisistratus (despitehis habitual courage) betook himself hastily to flight:--a strangeinstance of the caprice of human events, that a man could with agreater impunity subdue the freedom of his country, than affront thevanity of his wife! [232]

VIII. Pisistratus, his sons and partisans, retired to Eretria inEuboea: there they deliberated as to their future proceedings--shouldthey submit to their exile, or attempt to retrieve, their power? Thecouncils of his son Hippias prevailed with Pisistratus; it wasresolved once more to attempt the sovereignty of Athens. Theneighbouring tribes assisted the exiles with forage and shelter. Manycities accorded the celebrated noble large sums of money, and theThebans outdid the rest in pernicious liberality. A troop of Argiveadventurers came from the Peloponnesus to tender to the baffledusurper the assistance of their swords, and Lygdamis, an individual ofNaxos, himself ambitious of the government of his native state,increased his resources both by money and military force. At length,though after a long and tedious period of no less than eleven years,Pisistratus resolved to hazard the issue of open war. At the head ofa foreign force he advanced to Marathon, and pitched his tents uponits immortal plain. Troops of the factious or discontented throngedfrom Athens to his camp, while the bulk of the citizens, unaffected aysuch desertions, viewed his preparations with indifference. Atlength, when they heard that Pisistratus had broken up his encampment,and was on his march to the city, the Athenians awoke from theirapathy, and collected their forces to oppose him. He continued toadvance his troops, halted at the temple of Minerva, whose earthlyrepresentative had once so benignly assisted him, and pitched histents opposite the fane. He took advantage of that time in which theAthenians, during the heats of the day, were at their entertainments,or indulging the noontide repose, still so grateful to the inhabitantsof a warmer climate, to commence his attack. He soon scattered thefoe, and ordered his sons to overtake them in their flight, to bidthem return peacefully to their employments, and fear nothing from hisvengeance. His clemency assisted the effect of his valour, and oncemore the son of Hippocrates became the master of the Atheniancommonwealth.

IX. Pisistratus lost no time in strengthening himself by formidablealliances. He retained many auxiliary troops, and provided largepecuniary resources [233]. He spared the persons of his opponents,but sent their children as hostages to Naxos, which he first reducedand consigned to the tyranny of his auxiliary, Lygdamis. Many of hisinveterate enemies had perished on the field--many fled from the fearof his revenge. He was undisturbed in the renewal of his sway, andhaving no motive for violence, pursued the natural bent of a mild andgenerous disposition, ruling as one who wishes men to forget the meansby which his power has been attained. Pisistratus had that passionfor letters which distinguished most of the more brilliant Athenians.Although the poems of Homer were widely known and deeply veneratedlong before his time, yet he appears, by a more accurate collectionand arrangement of them, and probably by bringing them into a moregeneral and active circulation in Athens, to have largely added to thewonderful impetus to poetical emulation, which those immortal writingswere calculated to give.

When we consider how much, even in our own times, and with all theadvantages of the press, the diffused fame and intellectual influenceof Shakspeare and Milton have owed to the praise and criticism ofindividuals, we may readily understand the kind of service rendered byPisistratus to Homer. The very example of so eminent a man would havedrawn upon the poet a less vague and more inquiring species ofadmiration; the increased circulation of copies--the more frequentpublic recitals--were advantages timed at that happy season when thepeople who enjoyed them had grown up from wondering childhood toimitative and studious youth. And certain it is, that from thisperiod we must date the marked and pervading influence of Homer uponAthenian poetry; for the renown of a poet often precedes by manygenerations the visible influence of his peculiar genius. It ischiefly within the last seventy years that we may date the wonderfuleffect that Shakspeare was destined to produce upon the universalintellect of Europe. The literary obligations of Athens toPisistratus were not limited to his exertions on behalf of Homer: heis said to have been the first in Greece who founded a public library,rendering its treasures accessible to all. And these two benefitsunited, justly entitle the fortunate usurper to the praise of firstcalling into active existence that intellectual and literary spiritwhich became diffused among the Athenian people, and originated themodels and masterpieces of the world. It was in harmony with thispart of his character that Pisistratus refitted the taste andsocialized the habits of the citizens, by the erection of buildingsdedicated to the public worship, or the public uses, and laid out thestately gardens of the Lyceum--(in after-times the favourite haunt ofphilosophy), by the banks of the river dedicated to song. Pisistratusdid thus more than continue the laws of Solon--he inculcated theintellectual habits which the laws were designed to create. And as inthe circle of human events the faults of one man often confirm whatwas begun by the virtues of another, so perhaps the usurpation ofPisistratus was necessary to establish the institutions of Solon. Itis clear that the great lawgiver was not appreciated at the close ofhis life; as his personal authority had ceased to have influence, sopossibly might have soon ceased the authority of his code. Thecitizens required repose to examine, to feel, to estimate theblessings of his laws--that repose they possessed under Pisistratus.Amid the tumult of fierce and equipoised factions it might befortunate that a single individual was raised above the rest, who,having the wisdom to appreciate the institutions of Solon, had theauthority to enforce them. Silently they grew up under his usurpedbut benignant sway, pervading, penetrating, exalting the people, andfitting them by degrees to the liberty those institutions wereintended to confer. If the disorders of the republic led to theascendency of Pisistratus, so the ascendency of Pisistratus paved theway for the renewal of the republic. As Cromwell was therepresentative of the very sentiments he appeared to subvert--asNapoleon in his own person incorporated the principles of therevolution of France, so the tyranny of Pisistratus concentrated andimbodied the elements of that democracy he rather wielded thanoverthrew.

X. At home, time and tranquillity cemented the new laws; poetry setbefore the emulation of the Athenians its noblest monument in theepics of Homer; and tragedy put forth its first unmellowed fruits inthe rude recitations of Thespis (B. C. 535). [234] Pisistratus soughtalso to counterbalance the growing passion for commerce by peculiarattention to agriculture, in which it is not unlikely that he wasconsiderably influenced by early prepossessions, for his party hadbeen the mountaineers attached to rural pursuits, and his adversariesthe coastmen engaged in traffic. As a politician of great sagacity,he might also have been aware, that a people accustomed toagricultural employments are ever less inclined to democraticinstitutions than one addicted to commerce and manufactures; and if hewere the author of a law, which at all events he more rigidlyenforced, requiring every citizen to give an account of his mode oflivelihood, and affixing punishments to idleness, he could not havetaken wiser precautions against such seditions as are begot by povertyupon indolence, or under a juster plea have established thesuperintendence of a concealed police. We learn from Aristotle thathis policy consisted much in subjecting and humbling the pediaei, orwealthy nobles of the lowlands. But his very affection to agriculturemust have tended to strengthen an aristocracy, and his humility to theAreopagus was a proof of his desire to conciliate the least democraticof the Athenian courts. He probably, therefore, acted only againstsuch individual chiefs as had incurred his resentment, or as menacedhis power; nor can we perceive in his measures the systematic anddeliberate policy, common with other Greek tyrants, to break up anaristocracy and create a middle class.

XI. Abroad, the ambition of Pisistratus, though not extensive, wassuccessful. There was a town on the Hellespont called Sigeum, whichhad long been a subject of contest between the Athenians and theMitylenaeans. Some years before the legislation of Solon, theAthenian general, Phryno, had been slain in single combat by Pittacus,one of the seven wise men, who had come into the field armed like theRoman retiarius, with a net, a trident, and a dagger. This feud wasterminated by the arbitration of Periander, tyrant of Corinth, whoawarded Sigeum to the Athenians, which was then in their possession,by a wise and plausible decree, that each party should keep what ithad got. This war was chiefly remarkable for an incident thatintroduces us somewhat unfavourably to the most animated of the lyricpoets. Alcaeus, an eminent citizen of Mitylene, and, according toancient scandal, the unsuccessful lover of Sappho, conceived a passionfor military fame: in his first engagement he seems to have discoveredthat his proper vocation was rather to sing of battles than to sharethem. He fled from the field, leaving his arms behind him, which theAthenians obtained, and suspended at Sigeum in the temple of Minerva.Although this single action, which Alcaeus himself recorded, cannot befairly held a sufficient proof of the poet's cowardice, yet hischaracter and patriotism are more equivocal than his genius. Of thelast we have ample testimony, though few remains save in the frigidgrace of the imitations of Horace. The subsequent weakness and civildissensions of Athens were not favourable to the maintenance of thisdistant conquest--the Mitylenaeans regained Sigeum. Against this townPisistratus now directed his arms--wrested it from the Mitylenaeans--and, instead of annexing it to the republic of Athens, assigned itsgovernment to the tyranny of his natural son, Hegesistratus,--a stormydominion, which the valour of the bastard defended against repeatedassaults. [235]

XII. But one incident, the full importance of which the reader mustwait a while to perceive, I shall in this place relate. Among themost powerful of the Athenians was a noble named Miltiades, son ofCypselus. By original descent he was from the neighbouring island ofAegina, and of the heroic race of Aeacus; but he dated theestablishment of his house in Athens from no less distant a founderthan the son of Ajax. Miltiades had added new lustre to his name by avictory at the Olympic games. It was probably during the firsttyranny of Pisistratus [236] that an adventure, attended with vastresults to Greece, befell this noble. His family were among theenemies of Pisistratus, and were regarded by that sagacious usurperwith a jealous apprehension which almost appears prophetic. Miltiadeswas, therefore, uneasy under the government of Pisistratus, anddiscontented with his position in Athens. One day, as he sat beforehis door (such is the expression of the enchanting Herodotus,unconscious of the patriarchal picture he suggests [237]), Miltiadesobserved certain strangers pass by, whose garments and spears denotedthem to be foreigners. The sight touched the chief, and he offeredthe strangers the use of his house, and the rites of hospitality.They accepted his invitation, were charmed by his courtesy, andrevealed to him the secret of their travel. In that narrow territorywhich, skirting the Hellespont, was called the Chersonesus, orPeninsula, dwelt the Doloncians, a Thracian tribe. Engaged in anobstinate war with the neighbouring Absinthians, the Doloncians hadsent to the oracle of Delphi to learn the result of the contest. ThePythian recommended the messengers to persuade the first man who, ontheir quitting the temple, should offer them the rites of hospitality,to found a colony in their native land. Passing homeward throughPhocis and Boeotia, and receiving no such invitation by the way, themessengers turned aside to Athens; Miltiades was the first who offeredthem the hospitality they sought; they entreated him now to complywith the oracle, and assist their countrymen; the discontented noblewas allured by the splendour of the prospect--he repaired in person toDelphi--consulted the Pythian--received a propitious answer--andcollecting all such of the Athenians as his authority could enlist, ortheir own ambition could decoy, he repaired to the Chersonesus(probably B. C. 559). There he fortified a great part of the isthmus,as a barrier to the attacks of the Absinthians: but shortly afterward,in a feud with the people of Lampsacus, he was taken prisoner by theenemy. Miltiades, however, had already secured the esteem andprotection of Croesus; and the Lydian monarch remonstrated with theLampsacenes in so formidable a tone of menace, that the Athenianobtained his release, and regained his new principality. In themeanwhile, his brother Cimon (who was chiefly remarkable for hissuccess at the Olympic games), sharing the political sentiments of hishouse, had been driven into exile by Pisistratus. By a transfer tothe brilliant tyrant of a victory in the Olympic chariot-race, he,however, propitiated Pisistratus, and returned to Athens.

VIII. Full of years, and in the serene enjoyment of power,Pisistratus died (B. C. 527). His character may already be gatheredfrom his actions: crafty in the pursuit of power, but magnanimous inits possession, we have only, with some qualification, to repeat theeulogium on him ascribed to his greater kinsman, Solon--"That he wasthe best of tyrants, and without a vice save that of ambition."

CHAPTER III.

The Administration of Hippias.--The Conspiracy of Harmodius andAristogiton.--The Death of Hipparchus.--Cruelties of Hippias.--Theyoung Miltiades sent to the Chersonesus.--The Spartans Combine withthe Alcmaeonidae against Hippias.--The fall of the Tyranny.--TheInnovations of Clisthenes.--His Expulsion and Restoration.--Embassy tothe Satrap of Sardis.--Retrospective View of the Lydian, Medean, andPersian Monarchies.--Result of the Athenian Embassy to Sardis.--Conduct of Cleomenes.--Victory of the Athenians against the Boeotiansand Chalcidians.--Hippias arrives at Sparta.--The Speech of Sosiclesthe Corinthian.--Hippias retires to Sardis.

I. Upon the death of Pisistratus, his three sons, Hipparchus,Hippias, and Thessalus, succeeded to the government. Nor, thoughHippias was the eldest, does he seem to have exercised a moreprominent authority than the rest--since, in the time of Thucydides,and long afterward, it was the popular error to consider Hipparchusthe first-born. Hippias was already of mature age; and, as we haveseen, it was he who had counselled his father not to despair, afterhis expulsion from Athens. He was a man of courage and ability worthyof his race. He governed with the same careful respect for the lawswhich had distinguished and strengthened the authority of hispredecessor. He even rendered himself yet more popular thanPisistratus by reducing one half the impost of a tithe on the produceof the land, which that usurper had imposed. Notwithstanding thisrelief, he was enabled, by a prudent economy, to flatter the nationalvanity by new embellishments to the city. In the labours of hisgovernment he was principally aided by his second brother, Hipparchus,a man of a yet more accomplished and intellectual order of mind. Butalthough Hippias did not alter the laws, he chose his own creatures toadminister them. Besides, whatever share in the government wasintrusted to his brothers, Hipparchus and Thessalus, his son andseveral of his family were enrolled among the archons of the city.And they who by office were intended for the guardians of liberty werethe necessary servants of the tyrant.

II. If we might place unhesitating faith in the authenticity of thedialogue attributed to Plato under the title of "Hipparchus," weshould have, indeed, high authority in favour of the virtues and thewisdom of that prince. And by whomsoever the dialogue was written, itrefers to facts, in the passage relative to the son of Pisistratus, ina manner sufficiently positive to induce us to regard that portion ofit with some deference. According to the author, we learn thatHipparchus, passionately attached to letters, brought Anacreon toAthens, and lived familiarly with Simonides. He seems to have beeninspired with the ambition of a moralist, and distributed Hermae, orstone busts of Mercury, about the city and the public roads, which,while answering a similar purpose to our mile-stones, arrested the eyeof the passenger with pithy and laconic apothegms in verse; such as,"Do not deceive your friend," and "Persevere in affection tojustice;"--proofs rather of the simplicity than the wisdom of theprince. It is not by writing the decalogue upon mile-stones that therobber would be terrified, or the adulterer converted.

It seems that the apothegmatical Hipparchus did not associate withAnacreon more from sympathy with his genius than inclination to thesubjects to which it was devoted. He was addicted to pleasure; nordid he confine its pursuits to the more legitimate objects of sensualaffection. Harmodius, a young citizen of no exalted rank, but muchpersonal beauty, incurred the affront of his addresses [238].Harmodius, in resentment, confided the overtures of the moralist tohis friend and preceptor, Aristogiton. While the two were broodingover the outrage, Hipparchus, in revenge for the disdain of Harmodius,put a public insult upon the sister of that citizen, a young maiden.She received a summons to attend some public procession, as bearer ofone of the sacred vessels: on presenting herself she was abruptlyrejected, with the rude assertion that she never could have beenhonoured with an invitation of which she was unworthy. This affrontrankled deeply in the heart of Harmodius, but still more in that ofthe friendly Aristogiton, and they now finally resolved upon revenge.At the solemn festival of Panathenaea, (in honour of Minerva), it wasthe custom for many of the citizens to carry arms in the procession:for this occasion they reserved the blow. They intrusted theirdesigns to few, believing that if once the attempt was begun thepeople would catch the contagion, and rush spontaneously to theassertion of their freedom. The festival arrived. Bent against theelder tyrant, perhaps from nobler motives than those which urged themagainst Hipparchus [239], each armed with a dagger concealed in thesacred myrtle bough which was borne by those who joined theprocession, the conspirators advanced to the spot in the suburbs whereHippias was directing the order of the ceremonial. To their dismay,they perceived him conversing familiarly with one of their ownpartisans, and immediately suspected that to be the treason of theirfriend which in reality was the frankness of the affable prince.Struck with fear, they renounced their attempt upon Hippias, suddenlyretreated to the city, and, meeting with Hipparchus, rushed upon him,wounded, and slew him. Aristogiton turned to fly--he escaped theguards, but was afterward seized, and "not mildly treated" [240] bythe tyrant. Such is the phrase of Thucydides, which, if we may takethe interpretation of Justin and the later writers, means that,contrary to the law, he was put to the torture [241]. Harmodius wasslain upon the spot. The news of his brother's death was brought toHippias. With an admirable sagacity and presence of mind, herepaired, not to the place of the assassination, but towards theprocession itself, rightly judging that the conspiracy had only brokenout in part. As yet the news of the death of Hipparchus had notreached the more distant conspirators in the procession, and Hippiasbetrayed not in the calmness of his countenance any signs of hissorrow or his fears. He approached the procession, and with acomposed voice commanded them to deposite their arms, and file offtowards a place which he indicated. They obeyed the order, imagininghe had something to communicate to them. Then turning to his guards,Hippias bade them seize the weapons thus deposited, and he himselfselected from the procession all whom he had reason to suspect, or onwhose persons a dagger was found, for it was only with the openweapons of spear and shield that the procession was lawfully to bemade. Thus rose and thus terminated that conspiracy which gave to thenoblest verse and the most enduring veneration the names of Harmodiusand Aristogiton. [242]

III. The acutest sharpener of tyranny is an unsuccessful attempt todestroy it--to arouse the suspicion of power is almost to compel it tocruelty. Hitherto we have seen that Hippias had graced his authoritywith beneficent moderation; the death of his brother filled him withsecret alarm; and the favour of the populace at the attempted escapeof Aristogiton--the ease with which, from a personal affront to anobscure individual, a formidable conspiracy had sprung up into life,convinced him that the arts of personal popularity are only to berelied on when the constitution of the government itself is popular.

It is also said that, when submitted to the torture, Aristogiton, withall the craft of revenge, asserted the firmest friends of Hippias tohave been his accomplices. Thus harassed by distrust, Hippiasresolved to guard by terror a power which clemency had failed torender secure. He put several of the citizens to death. According tothe popular traditions of romance, one of the most obnoxious acts ofhis severity was exercised upon a woman worthy to be the mistress ofAristogiton. Leaena, a girl of humble birth, beloved by thatadventurous citizen, was sentenced to the torture, and, that the painmight not wring from her any confession of the secrets of theconspiracy, she bit out her tongue. The Athenians, on afterwardrecovering their liberties, dedicated to the heroine a brazen lioness,not inappropriately placed in the vicinity of a celebrated statue ofVenus [243]. No longer depending on the love of the citizens, Hippiasnow looked abroad for the support of his power; he formed an alliancewith Hippoclus, the prince of Lampsacus, by marrying his daughter withthe son of that tyrant, who possessed considerable influence at thePersian court, to which he already directed his eyes--whether as asupport in the authority of the present, or an asylum against thereverses of the future. [244]

It was apparently about a year before the death of Hipparchus, thatStesagoras, the nephew and successor of that Miltiades who departedfrom Athens to found a colony in the Thracian Chersonesus, perished byan assassin's blow. Hippias, evidently deeming he had the right, assovereign of the parent country, to appoint the governor of thecolony, sent to the Chersonesus in that capacity the brother of thedeceased, a namesake of the first founder, whose father, Cimon, fromjealousy of his power or repute, had been murdered by the sons ofPisistratus [245]. The new Miltiades was a man of consummate talents,but one who scrupled little as to the means by which to accomplish hisobjects. Arriving at his government, he affected a deep sorrow forthe loss of his brother; the principal nobles of the various cities ofthe Chersonesus came in one public procession to condole with him; thecrafty chief seized and loaded them with irons, and, having thusinsnared the possible rivals of his power, or enemies of his designs,he secured the undisputed possession of the whole Chersonesus, andmaintained his civil authority by a constant military force. Amarriage with Hegesipyle, a daughter of one of the Thracian princes,at once enhanced the dignity and confirmed the sway of the young andaspiring chief. Some years afterward, we shall see in this Miltiadesthe most eminent warrior of his age--at present we leave him to anunquiet and perilous power, and return to Hippias.

IV. A storm gathered rapidly on against the security and ambition ofthe tyrant. The highborn and haughty family of the Alcmaeonids hadbeen expelled from Athens at the victorious return of Pisistratus--their estates in Attica confiscated--their houses razed--their verysepulchres destroyed. After fruitless attempts against theoppressors, they had retired to Lipsydrium, a fortress on the heightsof Parnes, where they continued to cherish the hope of return and thedesire of revenge. Despite the confiscation of their Attic estates,their wealth and resources, elsewhere secured, were enormous. Thetemple of Delphi having been destroyed by fire, they agreed with theAmphictyons to rebuild it, and performed the holy task with amagnificent splendour far exceeding the conditions of the contract.But in that religious land, wealth, thus lavished, was no unprofitableinvestment. The priests of Delphi were not insensible of theliberality of the exiles, and Clisthenes, the most eminent and able ofthe Alcmaeonidae, was more than suspected of suborning the Pythian.Sparta, the supporter of oligarchies, was the foe of tyrants, andevery Spartan who sought the oracle was solemnly involved to aid theglorious enterprise of delivering the Eupatrids of Athens from theyoke of the Pisistratidae.

The Spartans were at length moved by instances so repeatedly urged.Policy could not but soften that jealous state to such appeals to hersuperstition. Under the genius of the Pisistratidae, Athens hadrapidly advanced in power, and the restoration of the Alcmaeonidaemight have seemed to the Spartan sagacity but another term for theestablishment of that former oligarchy which had repressed theintellect and exhausted the resources of an active and aspiringpeople. Sparta aroused herself, then, at length, and "though inviolation." says Herodotus, "of some ancient ties of hospitality,"despatched a force by sea against the Prince of Athens. That alertand able ruler lost no time in seeking assistance from his allies, theThessalians; and one of their powerful princes led a thousand horsemenagainst the Spartans, who had debarked at Phalerum. Joined by theseallies, Hippias engaged and routed the enemy, and the Spartan leaderhimself fell upon the field of battle. His tomb was long visible inCynosarges, near the gates of Athens--a place rendered afterward moreillustrious by giving name to the Cynic philosophers. [246]

Undismayed by their defeat, the Spartans now despatched a moreconsiderable force against the tyrant, under command of their kingCleomenes. This army proceeded by land--entered Attica--encountered,defeated, the Thessalian horse [247],--and marched towards the gatesof Athens, joined, as they proceeded, by all those Athenians whohoped, in the downfall of Hippias, the resurrection of theirliberties. The Spartan troops hastened to besiege the Athenian princein the citadel, to which he retired with his forces. But Hippias hadprovided his refuge with all the necessaries which might maintain himin a stubborn and prolonged resistance. The Spartans were unpreparedfor the siege--the blockade of a few days sufficed to dishearten them,and they already meditated a retreat. A sudden incident opening to usin the midst of violence one of those beautiful glimpses of humanaffection which so often adorn and sanctify the darker pages ofhistory, unexpectedly secured the Spartan triumph. Hippias and hisfriends, fearing the safety of their children in the citadel, resolvedto dismiss them privately to some place of greater security.Unhappily, their care was frustrated, and the children fell into thehands of the enemy. All the means of success within their reach (thefoe wearied--the garrison faithful), the parents yet resignedthemselves at once to the voluntary sacrifice of conquest andambition.

Upon the sole condition of recovering their children, Hippias and hispartisans consented to surrender the citadel, and quit the territoriesof Attica within five days. Thus, in the fourth year from the deathof Hipparchus (B. C. 510), and about fifty years after the firstestablishment of the tyranny under its brilliant founder, the dominionof Athens passed away from the house of Pisistratus.

V. The party of Hippias, defeated, not by the swords of the enemy,but by the soft impulses of nature, took their way across the streamof the immemorial Scamander, and sought refuge at Sigeum, still underthe government of Hegesistratus, the natural brother of the exiledprince.

The instant the pressure of one supreme power was removed, the twoparties imbodying the aristocratic and popular principles rose intoactive life. The state was to be a republic, but of whatdenomination? The nobles naturally aspired to the predominance--attheir head was the Eupatrid Isagoras; the strife of party always tendsto produce popular results, even from elements apparently the mosthostile. Clisthenes, the head of the Alcmaeonidae, was by birth evenyet more illustrious than Isagoras; for, among the nobles, theAlcmaeonid family stood pre-eminent. But, unable to attain the solepower of the government, Clisthenes and his party were unwilling toyield to the more numerous faction of an equal. The exile andsufferings of the Alcmaeonids had, no doubt, secured to them much ofthe popular compassion; their gallant struggles against, theirultimate victory over the usurper, obtained the popular enthusiasm;thus it is probable, that an almost insensible sympathy had sprung upbetween this high-born faction and the people at large; and when,unable to cope with the party of the nobles, Clisthenes attachedhimself to the movement of the commons, the enemy of the tyrantappeared in his natural position--at the head of the democracy.Clisthenes was, however, rather the statesman of a party than thelegislator for a people--it was his object permanently to break up thepower of the great proprietors, not as enemies of the commonwealth,but as rivals to his faction. The surest way to diminish theinfluence of property in elections is so to alter the constituenciesas to remove the electors from the immediate control of individualproprietors. Under the old Ionic and hereditary divisions of fourtribes, many ancient associations and ties between the poorer and thenobler classes were necessarily formed. By one bold innovation, thewhole importance of which was not immediately apparent, Clisthenesabolished these venerable divisions, and, by a new geographicalsurvey, created ten tribes instead of the former four. These wereagain subdivided into districts, or demes; the number seems to havevaried, but at the earliest period they were not less than onehundred--at a later period they exceeded one hundred and seventy. Tothese demes were transferred all the political rights and privilegesof the divisions they supplanted. Each had a local magistrate andlocal assemblies. Like corporations, these petty courts oflegislature ripened the moral spirit of democracy while fitting menfor the exercise of the larger rights they demanded. A consequence ofthe alteration of the number of the tribes was an increase in thenumber that composed the senate, which now rose from four to fivehundred members.

Clisthenes did not limit himself to this change in the constituentbodies--he increased the total number of the constituents; newcitizens were made--aliens were admitted--and it is supposed by some,though upon rather vague authorities, that several slaves wereenfranchised. It was not enough, however, to augment the number ofthe people, it was equally necessary to prevent the ascension of asingle man. Encouraged by the example in other states of Greece,forewarned by the tyranny of Pisistratus, Clisthenes introduced theinstitution of the Ostracism [248]. Probably about the same period,the mode of election to public office generally was altered from thepublic vote to the secret lot [249]. It is evident that thesechanges, whether salutary or pernicious, were not wanton or uncalledfor. The previous constitution had not sufficed to protect therepublic from a tyranny: something deficient in the machinery ofSolon's legislation had for half a century frustrated its practicalintentions. A change was, therefore, necessary to the existence ofthe free state; and the care with which that change was directedtowards the diminution of the aristocratic influence, is in itself aproof that such influence had been the shelter of the defeatedtyranny. The Athenians themselves always considered the innovationsof Clisthenes but as the natural development of the popularinstitutions of Solon; and that decisive and energetic noble seemsindeed to have been one of those rude but serviceable instruments bywhich a more practical and perfect action is often wrought out fromthe incompleted theories of greater statesmen.

VI. Meanwhile, Isagoras, thus defeated by his rival, had the meanambition to appeal to the Spartan sword. Ancient scandal attributesto Cleomenes, king of Sparta, an improper connexion with the wife ofIsagoras, and every one knows that the fondest friend of the cuckoldis invariably the adulterer;--the national policy of foundingaristocracies was doubtless, however, a graver motive with the Spartanking than his desire to assist Isagoras. Cleomenes by a public heraldproclaimed the expulsion of Clisthenes, upon a frivolous pretence thatthe Alcmaeonidae were still polluted by the hereditary sacrilege ofCylon. Clisthenes privately retired from the city, and the Spartanking, at the head of an inconsiderable troop, re-entered Athens--expelled, at the instance of Isagoras, seven hundred Athenianfamilies, as inculpated in the pretended pollution of Clisthenes--dissolved the senate--and committed all the offices of the state to anoligarchy of three hundred (a number and a council founded upon theDorian habits), each of whom was the creature of Isagoras. But thenoble assembly he had thus violently dissolved refused obedience tohis commands; they appealed to the people, whom the valour of libertysimultaneously aroused, and the citadel, of which Isagoras and theSpartans instantly possessed themselves, was besieged by the wholepower of Athens. The conspirators held out only two days; on thethird, they accepted the conditions of the besiegers, and departedpeaceably from the city. Some of the Athenians, who had shared thetreason without participating in the flight, were justly executed.Clisthenes, with the families expelled by Cleomenes, was recalled, andthe republic of Athens was thus happily re-established.

VII. But the iron vengeance of that nation of soldiers, thus farsuccessfully braved, was not to be foreboded without alarm by theAthenians. They felt that Cleomenes had only abandoned his designs toreturn to them more prepared for contest; and Athens was not yet in acondition to brave the determined and never-sparing energies ofSparta. The Athenians looked around the states of Greece--many inalliance with Lacedaemon--some governed by tyrants--others distractedwith their own civil dissensions; there were none from whom the newcommonwealth could hope for a sufficient assistance against therevenge of Cleomenes. In this dilemma, they resorted to the only aidwhich suggested itself, and sought, across the boundaries of Greece,the alliance of the barbarians. They adventured a formal embassy toArtaphernes, satrap of Sardis, to engage the succour of Darius, kingof Persia.

Accompanying the Athenians in this mission, full of interest, for itwas the first public transaction between that republic and the throneof Persia, I pause to take a rapid survey of the origin of that mightyempire, whose destinies became thenceforth involved in the history ofGrecian misfortunes and Grecian fame. That survey commences with thefoundation of the Lydian monarchy.

VIII. Amid the Grecian colonies of Asia whose rise we havecommemorated, around and above a hill commanding spacious and fertileplains watered by the streams of the Cayster and Maeander; an ancientPelasgic tribe called the Maeonians had established their abode.According to Herodotus, these settlers early obtained the name ofLydians, from Lydus, the son of Atys. The Dorian revolution did notspare these delightful seats, and an Heraclid dynasty is said to havereigned five hundred years over the Maeonians; these in their turnwere supplanted by a race known to us as the Mermnadae, the founder ofwhom, Gyges, murdered and dethroned the last of the Heraclidae; andwith a new dynasty seems to have commenced a new and less Asiaticpolicy. Gyges, supported by the oracle of Delphi, was the firstbarbarian, except one of the many Phrygian kings claiming the name ofMidas, who made votive offerings to that Grecian shrine. From histime this motley tribe, the link between Hellas and the East, cameinto frequent collision with the Grecian colonies. Gyges himself madewar with Miletus and Smyrna, and even captured Colophon. WithMiletus, indeed, the hostility of the Lydians became hereditary, andwas renewed with various success by the descendants of Gyges, until,in the time of his great-grandson Alyattes, a war of twelve years withthat splendid colony was terminated by a solemn peace and a strictalliance. Meanwhile, the petty but warlike monarchy founded by Gygeshad preserved the Asiatic Greeks from dangers yet more formidable thanits own ambition. From a remote period, savage and ferocious tribes,among which are pre-eminent the Treres and Cimmerians, had oftenravaged the inland plains--now for plunder, now for settlement.Magnesia had been entirely destroyed by the Treres--even Sardis, thecapital of the Mermnadae, had been taken, save the citadel, by theCimmerians. It was reserved for Alyattes to terminate theseformidable irruptions, and Asia was finally delivered by his arms froma people in whom modern erudition has too fondly traced the ancestorsof the Cymry, or ancient Britons [250]. To this enterprising and ableking succeeded a yet more illustrious monarch, who ought to have foundin his genius the fame he has derived from his misfortunes. At theage of thirty-five Croesus ascended the Lydian throne. Beforeassociated in the government with his father, he had rendered himselfdistinguished in military service; and, wise, accomplished, butgrasping and ambitious, this remarkable monarch now completed thedesigns of his predecessors. Commencing with Ephesus, he succeeded inrendering tributary every Grecian colony on the western coast of Asia;and, leaving to each state its previous institutions, he kept bymoderation what he obtained by force.

Croesus was about to construct a fleet for the purpose of adding tohis dominions the isles of the Aegaean, but is said to have beendissuaded from his purpose by a profound witticism of one of the sevenwise men of Greece. "The islanders," said the sage, "are about tostorm you in your capital of Sardis, with ten thousand cavalry."--"Nothing could gratify me more," said the king, "than to see theislanders invading the Lydian continent with horsemen."--"Right,"replied the wise man, "and it will give the islanders equalsatisfaction to find the Lydians attacking them by a fleet. Torevenge their disasters on the land, the Greeks desire nothing betterthan to meet you on the ocean." The answer enlightened the king, and,instead of fitting out his fleet, he entered into amicable alliancewith the Ionians of the isles [251]. But his ambition was onlythwarted in one direction to strike its roots in another; and heturned his invading arms against his neighbours on the continent,until he had progressively subdued nearly all the nations, save theLycians and Cilicians, westward to the Halys. And thus rapidly andmajestically rose from the scanty tribe and limited territory of theold Maeonians the monarchy of Asia Minor.

IX. The renown of Croesus established, his capital of Sardis becamethe resort of the wise and the adventurous, whether of Asia or ofGreece. In many respects the Lydians so closely resembled the Greeksas to suggest the affinity which historical evidence scarcely sufficesto permit us absolutely to affirm. The manners and the customs ofeither people did not greatly differ, save that with the Lydians, asstill throughout the East, but little consideration was attached towomen;--they were alike in their cultivation of the arts, and theirrespect for the oracles of religion--and Delphi, in especial, wasinordinately enriched by the prodigal superstition of the Lydiankings.

The tradition which ascribes to the Lydians the invention of coinedmoney is a proof of their commercial habits. The neighbouring Tmolusteemed with gold, which the waters of the Pactolus bore into the verystreets of the city. Their industry was exercised in the manufactureof articles of luxury rather than those of necessity. Their purplegarments.-their skill in the workmanship of metals--their marts forslaves and eunuchs--their export trade of unwrought gold--aresufficient evidence both of the extent and the character of theircivilization. Yet the nature of the oriental government did not failto operate injuriously on the more homely and useful directions oftheir energy. They appear never to have worked the gold-mines, whoseparticles were borne to them by the careless bounty of the Pactolus.Their early traditional colonies were wafted on Grecian vessels. Thegorgeous presents with which they enriched the Hellenic temples seemto have been fabricated by Grecian art, and even the advantages ofcommerce they seem rather to have suffered than to have sought. Butwhat a people so suddenly risen into splendour, governed by a wiseprince, and stimulated perhaps to eventual liberty by the example ofthe European Greeks, ought to have become, it is impossible toconjecture; perhaps the Hellenes of the East.

At this period, however, of such power--and such promise, the fall ofthe Lydian empire was decreed. Far from the fertile fields andgorgeous capital of Lydia, amid steril mountains, inhabited by asimple and hardy race, rose the portentous star of the Persian Cyrus.

X. A victim to that luxury which confirms a free but destroys adespotic state, the vast foundations of the Assyrian empire werecrumbling into decay, when a new monarchy, destined to become itssuccessor, sprung up among one of its subject nations. Divided intovarious tribes, each dependant upon the Assyrian sceptre, was awarlike, wandering, and primitive race, known to us under the name ofMedes. Deioces, a chief of one of the tribes, succeeded in unitingthese scattered sections into a single people, built a city, andfounded an independent throne. His son, Phraortes, reduced thePersians to his yoke--overran Asia--advanced to Nineveh--andultimately perished in battle with a considerable portion of his army.Succeeded by his son Cyaxares, that monarch consummated the ambitiousdesigns of his predecessors. He organized the miscellaneous hordesthat compose an oriental army into efficient and formidablediscipline, vanquished the Assyrians, and besieged Nineveh, when amighty irruption of the Scythian hordes called his attention homeward.A defeat, which at one blow robbed this great king of the dominion ofAsia, was ultimately recovered by a treacherous massacre of theScythian leaders (B. C. 606). The Medes regained their power andprosecuted their conquests--Nineveh fell--and through the wholeAssyrian realm, Babylon alone remained unsubjugated by the Mede. Tothis new-built and wide-spread empire succeeded Astyages, son of thefortunate Cyaxares. But it is the usual character of a conqueringtribe to adopt the habits and be corrupted by the vices of the subduednations among which the invaders settle; and the peaceful reign ofAstyages sufficed to enervate that vigilant and warlike spirit in thevictor race, by which alone the vast empires of the East can bepreserved from their natural tendency to decay. The Persians, subduedby the grandsire of Astyages, seized the occasion to revolt. Amongthem rose up a native hero, the Gengis-khan of the ancient world.Through the fables which obscure his history we may be allowed toconjecture, that Cyrus, or Khosroo, was perhaps connected by bloodwith Astyages, and, more probably, that he was intrusted with commandamong the Persians by that weak and slothful monarch. Be that as itmay, he succeeded in uniting under his banners a martial anduncorrupted population, overthrew the Median monarchy, and transferredto a dynasty, already worn out with premature old age, the vigorousand aspiring youth of a mountain race. Such was the formidable foethat now menaced the rising glories of the Lydian king.

XI. Croesus was allied by blood with the dethroned Astyages, andindividual resentment at the overthrow of his relation co-operatedwith his anxious fears of the ambition of the victor. A lesssagacious prince might easily have foreseen that the Persians wouldscarcely be secure in their new possessions, ere the wealth anddomains of Lydia would tempt the restless cupidity of their chief.After much deliberation as to the course to be pursued, Croesusresorted for advice to the most celebrated oracles of Greece, and evento that of the Libyan Ammon. The answer he received from Delphiflattered, more fatally than the rest, the inclinations of the king.He was informed "that if he prosecuted a war with Persia a mightyempire would be overthrown, and he was advised to seek the alliance ofthe most powerful states of Greece." Overjoyed with a response towhich his hopes gave but one interpretation, the king prodigalizedfresh presents on the Delphians, and received from them in return, forhis people and himself, the honour of priority above all other nationsin consulting the oracle, a distinguished seat in the temple, and theright of the citizenship of Delphi. Once more the fated monarchsought the oracle, and demanded if his power should ever fail. Thusreplied the Pythian: "When a mule shall sit enthroned over the Medes,fly, soft Lydian, across the pebbly waters of the Hermus." Theingenuity of Croesus could discover in this reply no reason for alarm,confident that a mule could never be the sovereign of the Medes. Thusanimated, and led on, the son of Alyattes prepared to oppose, while itwas yet time, the progress of the Persian arms. He collected all theforce he could summon from his provinces--crossed the Halys--enteredCappadocia--devastated the surrounding country--destroyed severaltowns--and finally met on the plains of Pteria the Persian army. Thevictory was undecided; but Croesus, not satisfied with the force heled, which was inferior to that of Cyrus, returned to Sardis,despatched envoys for succour into Egypt and to Babylon, anddisbanded, for the present, the disciplined mercenaries whom he hadconducted into Cappadocia. But Cyrus was aware of the movements ofthe enemy, and by forced and rapid marches arrived at Sardis, andencamped before its walls. His army dismissed--his allies scarcelyreached by his embassadors--Croesus yet showed himself equal to theperil of his fortune. His Lydians were among the most valiant of theAsiatic nations--dexterous in their national weapon, the spear, andrenowned for the skill and prowess of their cavalry.

XII. In a wide plain, in the very neighbourhood of the royal Sardis,and watered "by the pebbly stream of the Hermus," the cavalry of Lydiamet, and were routed by the force of Cyrus. The city was besieged andtaken, and the wisest and wealthiest of the Eastern kings sunkthenceforth into a petty vassal, consigned as guest or prisoner to aMedian city near Ecbatana [252]. The prophecy was fulfilled, and amighty empire overthrown. [253]

The Grecian colonies of Asia, during the Lydian war, had resisted theovertures of Cyrus, and continued faithful to Croesus; they had nowcause to dread the vengeance of the conqueror. The Ionians andAeolians sent to demand the assistance of Lacedaemon, pledged equallywith themselves to the Lydian cause. But the Spartans, yet morecautious than courageous, saw but little profit in so unequal analliance. They peremptorily refused the offer of the colonists, but,after their departure, warily sent a vessel of fifty oars to watch theproceedings of Cyrus, and finally deputed Latrines, a Spartan ofdistinction, to inform the monarch of the Persian, Median, and Lydianempires, that any injury to the Grecian cities would be resented bythe Spartans. Cyrus asked with polite astonishment of the Greeksabout him, "Who these Spartans were?" and having ascertained as muchas he could comprehend concerning their military force and theirsocial habits, replied, "That men who had a large space in the middleof their city for the purpose of cheating one another, could not be tohim an object of terror:" so little respect had the hardy warrior forthe decent frauds of oratory and of trade. Meanwhile, he obliginglyadded, "that if he continued in health, their concern for the Ioniantroubles might possibly be merged in the greatness of their own."Soon afterward Cyrus swept onwards in the prosecution of his vastdesigns, overrunning Assyria, and rushing through the channels ofEuphrates into the palaces of Babylon, and the halls of the scripturalBelshazzar. His son, Cambyses, added the mystic Egypt to the vastconquests of Cyrus--and a stranger to the blood of the great victor,by means of superstitious accident or political intrigue, ascended thethrone of Asia, known to European history under the name of Darius.The generals of Cyrus had reduced to the Persian yoke the Ioniancolonies; the Isle of Samos (the first of the isles subjected) wasafterward conquered by a satrap of Sardis, and Darius, who, impelledby the ambition of his predecessors, had led with no similar success avast armament against the wandering Scythians, added, on his return,Lesbos, Chios, and other isles in the Aegaean, to the new monarchy ofthe world. As, in the often analogous history of Italian republics,we find in every incursion of the German emperor that some craftynoble of a free state joined the banner of a Frederick or a Henry inthe hope of receiving from the imperial favour the tyranny of his owncity--so there had not been wanting in the Grecian colonies men ofboldness and ambition, who flocked to the Persian standard, and, ingratitude for their services against the Scythian, were rewarded withthe supreme government of their native cities. Thus was raised Coes,a private citizen, to the tyranny of Mitylene--and thus Histiaeus,already possessing, was confirmed by Darius in, that of Miletus.Meanwhile Megabazus, a general of the Persian monarch, at the head ofan army of eighty thousand men, subdued Thrace, and made Macedoniatributary to the Persian throne. Having now established, as he deemedsecurely, the affairs of the empire in Asia Minor, Darius placed hisbrother Artaphernes in the powerful satrapy of Sardis, and returned tohis capital of Susa.

XIII. To this satrap, brother of that mighty monarch, came theambassadors of Athens. Let us cast our eyes along the map of theancient world--and survey the vast circumference of the Persian realm,stretching almost over the civilized globe. To the east no boundarywas visible before the Indus. To the north the empire extended to theCaspian and the Euxine seas, with that steep Caucasian range, neverpassed even by the most daring of the early Asiatic conquerors.Eastward of the Caspian, the rivers of Oxus and Iaxartes divided thesubjects of the great king from the ravages of the Tartar; the Arabianpeninsula interposed its burning sands, a barrier to the south--whilethe western territories of the empire, including Syria, Phoenicia, thefertile satrapies of Asia Minor, were washed by the Mediterraneanseas. Suddenly turning from this immense empire, let us nextendeavour to discover those dominions from which the Athenianambassadors were deputed: far down in a remote corner of the earth weperceive at last the scarce visible nook of Attica, with its capitalof Athens--a domain that in its extremest length measured sixtygeographical miles! We may now judge of the condescending wonder withwhich the brother of Darius listened to the ambassadors of a people,by whose glory alone his name is transmitted to posterity. Yet wasthere nothing unnatural or unduly arrogant in his reply. "SendDarius," said the satrap, affably, "earth and water (the accustomedsymbols of homage), and he will accept your alliance." The ambassadorsdeliberated, and, impressed by the might of Persia, and the sense oftheir own unfriended condition, they accepted the proposals.

If, fresh from our survey of the immeasurable disparity of powerbetween the two states, we cannot but allow the answer of the satrapwas such as might be expected, it is not without a thrill of sympathyand admiration we learn, that no sooner had the ambassadors returnedto Athens, than they received from the handful of its citizens asevere reprimand for their submission. Indignant at the proposal ofthe satrap, that brave people recurred no more to the thought of thealliance. In haughty patience, unassisted and alone, they awaited theburst of the tempest which they foresaw.

XIV. Meanwhile, Cleomenes, chafed at the failure of his attempt onthe Athenian liberties, and conceiving, in the true spirit ofinjustice, that he had been rather the aggrieved than the aggressor,levied forces in different parts of the Peloponnesus, but withoutdivulging the object he had in view [254]. That object was twofold--vengeance upon Athens, and the restoration of Isagoras. At length hethrew off the mask, and at the head of a considerable force seizedupon the holy city of Eleusis. Simultaneously, and in concert withthe Spartan, the Boeotians forcibly took possession of Oenoe andHysix--two towns on the extremity of Attica while from Chalcis (theprincipal city of the Isle of Euboea which fronted the Attic coast) aformidable band ravaged the Athenian territories. Threatened by thisthreefold invasion, the measures of the Athenians were prompt andvigorous. They left for the present unavenged the incursions of theBoeotians and Chalcidians, and marched with all the force they couldcollect against Cleomenes at Eleusis. The two armies were preparedfor battle, when a sudden revolution in the Spartan camp delivered theAthenians from the most powerful of their foes. The Corinthians,insnared by Cleomenes into measures, of the object of which they hadfirst been ignorant, abruptly retired from the field. Immediatelyafterward a dissension broke out between Cleomenes and Demaratus, theother king of Sparta, who had hitherto supported his colleague in allhis designs, and Demaratus hastily quitted Eleusis, and returned toLacedaemon. At this disunion between the kings of Sparta,accompanied, as it was, by the secession of the Corinthians, the otherconfederates broke up the camp, returned home, and left Cleomenes withso scanty a force that he was compelled to forego his resentment andhis vengeance, and retreat from the sacred city. The Athenians nowturned their arms against the Chalcidians, who had retired to Euboea;but, encountering the Boeotians, who were on their march to assisttheir island ally, they engaged and defeated them with a considerableslaughter. Flushed by their victory, the Athenians rested not upontheir arms--on the same day they crossed that narrow strait whichdivided them from Euboea, and obtained a second and equally signalvictory over the Chalcidians. There they confirmed their conquest bythe establishment of four thousand colonists [255] in the fertilemeadows of Euboea, which had been dedicated by the islanders to thepasturage of their horses. The Athenians returned in triumph to theircity. At the price of two minae each, their numerous prisoners wereransomed, and the captive chains suspended from the walls of thecitadel. A tenth part of the general ransom was consecrated, andapplied to the purchase of a brazen chariot, placed in the entrance ofthe citadel, with an inscription which dedicated it to the tutelarygoddess of Athens.

"Not from the example of the Athenians only," proceeds the father ofhistory, "but from universal experience, do we learn that an equalform of government is the best. While in subjection to tyrants theAthenians excelled in war none of their neighbours--delivered from theoppressor, they excelled them all; an evident proof that, controlledby one man they exerted themselves feebly, because exertion was for amaster; regaining liberty, each man was made zealous, because his zealwas for himself, and his individual interest was the common weal."[256] Venerable praise and accurate distinction! [257]

XV. The Boeotians, resentful of their defeat, sent to the Pythianoracle to demand the best means of obtaining revenge. The Pythianrecommended an alliance with their nearest neighbours. The Boeotians,who, although the inspiring Helicon hallowed their domain, wereesteemed but a dull and obtuse race, interpreted this response infavour of the people of the rocky island of Aegina--certainly nottheir nearest neighbours, if the question were to be settled bygeographers. The wealthy inhabitants of that illustrious isle, which,rising above that part of the Aegean called Sinus Saronicus, we mayyet behold in a clear sky from the heights of Phyle,--had longentertained a hatred against the Athenians. They willingly embracedthe proffered alliance of the Boeotians, and the two states ravaged inconcert the coast of Attica. While the Athenians were preparing toavenge the aggression, they received a warning from the Delphicoracle, enjoining them to refrain from all hostilities with the peopleof Aegina for thirty years, at the termination of which period theywere to erect a fane to Aeacus (the son of Jupiter, from whom,according to tradition, the island had received its name), and thenthey might commence war with success. The Athenians, on hearing the